


Time, Actually

by Tiny_Dragongirl



Series: All is fair in love and Varlow [2]
Category: Leviathan - Scott Westerfeld
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Teachers, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Misunderstandings, Moving to a new country, Neighbors, Really they think communication is an urban legend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2018-12-10 16:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11695935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiny_Dragongirl/pseuds/Tiny_Dragongirl
Summary: Volger is being a Dummkopf and even his moustache is confused, Dr Barlow likes to play baffling emotional games, but they sort it out, eventually.





	1. Garden Time

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by flannelgriaffe. Thank you!

After checking that every piece of furniture is unscratched, every box is unpacked and the whole house is shipshape, Ernst Volger barks upstairs to Alek (‘I am off for a bit, try not to set everything on fire!') and marches to the house on their right. He rings Dr Nora Barlow’s doorbell while musing on how God works in mysterious ways. Who would have thought they would be neighbours so soon after their random highway encounter?

‘Mr Volger, you are a most surprising man.’

They met on the very first day the Home Sweet Home Moving and Storage van parked outside Volger’s and Alek’s future home.

‘I am just as surprised as you are,’ said Volger back then, slowly walking up to Dr Barlow who was standing in front of the house right next to theirs. ‘I take that we are going to be neighbours.’

‘How observant you are, Mr Volger,’ Dr Barlow smiled at him with her mocking but warm smile and Volger suddenly felt a bit dizzy. He wondered if August was always this hot in this state. Or should he go and see a doctor about his blood pressure…?

‘I see you haven’t lost your touch,’ he bowed, enjoying her sarcasm. ‘I hope I can pay a visit to you after the inevitable bothers of moving in are dealt with.’

And now here he is.

When the door opens, he finds himself face to face with a man of Dr Barlow’s age. Nora Barlow is right behind the man, who seems to be just about to leave.

‘Ah, Mr Volger,’ the woman notices him. Volger can’t help but sense the moody edge in her voice. ‘Adam, this is Mr Ernst Volger, the new neighbour. They have moved into the late Mrs Frissell’s house. Mr Volger, may I introduce to you my husband?’

‘Adam Barlow,’ the man stretches out a hand, and Volger takes it, shakes it, but doesn’t feel it, like he is in a dream or in shock. If he was surprised before, now he is practically stunned. ‘I am just going, so…’

‘Oh, yes,’ Volger wakes up from his trance like someone has snapped a finger in front of his face, suddenly remembering why he came here in the first place. ‘This Saturday we are having a little garden…’ he hesitates because he doesn’t want to say “party”. Ernst Volger doesn’t throw parties in his garden. But he has to go on, so he says the first thing that comes to his mind: ‘…time, so we can meet our neighbours and get to know them a bit better. There will be food and beverages and… chatting. I’d like to invite you.’

‘Why, how nice of you,’ Nora Barlow smiles with her lips. All three of them looks a bit strained.

‘Very nice, indeed,’ Adam Barlow acknowledges, before shaking Volger’s hand once again. ‘Thanks for the invitation, but I really have to go. Bye.’

They follow him with their eyes, then his car, until it vanishes around the corner.

‘I should be going, too,’ Volger says eventually, with a bitter taste in his mouth.

‘Yes, I think you should,’ that’s the quiet reply he gets, lacking the usual sarcasm.

‘Good day, Doctor Barlow.’

He can feel her eyes on his back, following his steps like they did with Adam Barlow. Her husband. Right. He didn’t suspect, because she told him she was _Doctor_ Barlow and she wasn’t wearing a ring… also, because he didn’t want her to be married. He wanted to take her out to dinner. He promised to do so.

Maybe, for the first time in his life, he won’t be able to keep a promise. Most unsettling, really.

 

***

 

Ernst Volger isn’t known for his friendliness, but he tries his best, and most of their neighbours are all right. They don’t ask too much or too delicate questions (like what the hell a middle-aged Austrian with a memorable moustache and a fifteen years old boy is doing in America?), which is – in Volger’s opinion – important in order of leading a quiet, unperturbed life. They praise the food politely, then squeak at hearing how Alek helped him to make it. (Volger isn’t known for his cooking skills either.)

There is Dr Barlow’s _protégé_ , for example: Deryn Sharp, the fencing girl. Well, strictly speaking she is not their neighbour, but she lives at the far end of the street and Alek befriended her during fencing camp, so Volger invited her family just as well. So far what he learnt about them is that they had come to America from Scotland after the death of Deryn’s father (it was a work accident), and found shelter at the house of her two spinster aunts. Her brother, Jaspert is serving in the air force and Deryn will be starting her second year at the same high school Alek is going to attend. She swears a lot and fights like a boy, which are not the qualities Volger praises most in a girl, but Alek came home considering Deryn a friend after only one week of camp and a shared car-ride, so Volger doesn’t say a word against her.

Right now Deryn is arguing with Bauer about something, much to the delight of Meister Klopp and Hoffmann, Bauer’s partner. Klopp is an old acquaintance of Volger, and he has been working with his nephew, Hans Bauer in America for five years now, so it was obvious that Volger had turned to him for help when the idea of moving to the continent first came to his mind. And hey, here they are, ready to start a new life.

‘You don’t seem to be the garden party type, Mr Volger.’

Volger got lost in his thoughts so deeply that he didn’t notice Dr Barlow’s arrival. Or is it just the woman’s natural talent to surprise him?

‘It’s garden time, not a party,’ he immediately corrects her. ‘Good evening, Dr Barlow.’

‘Good evening, Mr Volger,’ she returns the greeting with a smile and a nod, but she doesn’t let her previous topic slip from her grip. ‘You don’t look the type who wishes to make the whole world his friend either.’

‘Or maybe I am just unfortunate in choosing my friends,’ he replies quite harshly, before admitting: ‘But yes, you are right, I don’t care a great deal about making friends. However, I wish to help Aleksander in making friends in this new environment.’

‘I can imagine what a great change it must be after… Germany?’

‘Austria.’ Volger doesn’t want to talk about how and why they came to the country, not now, not with her. Also, he has a question that’s been itching him for a while: ‘Your husband will join us later, maybe?’

‘I’m afraid he couldn’t come,’ her tone is clipped, dry. Volger muses how they can’t seem to find a topic to share this evening. ‘How rude I am,’ she shrugs, her smile returning to her face. ‘I haven’t even thanked you for inviting me to your garden time.’

‘You are very welcome.’ Volger tries oh-so-hard to keep sarcasm and warmth out of his voice.

‘Well, if I remember correctly, you promised me a dinner, after all.’

‘Ah, that.’ Volger wonders why this must be the evening of uncomfortable talks. ‘I am afraid I can’t keep my promise.’

‘I see,’ says Dr Barlow after a long pause. ‘Why, Mr Volger, you didn’t seem _that_ type either.’

‘I can still pay for the fuel, if you wish,’ he offers with a little bow. ‘My original intention, however…’ he stops abruptly, because he hasn’t faced yet what was his original intention exactly. He clearly wanted to take this woman out for dinner to… to thank her for her help, yes, but he must realise that he had more selfish motives.

Gosh, he wanted to take her on a date, and now he can’t ask her out anymore because she is married. How ridiculous.

‘My intention wasn’t exactly innocent. I was naïve to think that a woman like you could be still unattached. I apologise for the misunderstanding.’

‘A woman like me? Mr Volger, you know how to compliment a lady,’ she mocks him gently. ‘But there was no misunderstanding, quite the opposite: I very much hoped your intention wasn’t innocent.’

‘Doctor Barlow, please, I do not wish to partake in adulterous affairs.’

Does he not? Most of all, he simply feels confused. He doesn’t know what he wants. He feels he is too old (or maybe just too old-fashioned) for these methods. Flirting with married women, respecting them at the same time as ruining them, this is not his way. It has never been, not in his old life he left behind in Austria.

Nora Barlow might sense his hesitation, the confusion of his mind, heart and soul, because she starts to speak in a practical, but hasty way: ‘I don’t like to advertise this because my private life is my business, but what if I told you that I live separately from my husband? That he only visits me to discuss the details of the divorce? If I asked you to come and dine with me like I weren’t married, because it’s only a matter of time? How would that change your opinion, as if…?’

Volger ponders the questions he has been challenged with. He wishes he could be a bit younger or he could be still in his mother country, but none of those is possible. He feels immensely tired, like Dr Barlow has asked him to turn the Earth around, change its way around the Sun.

‘I would ask you to dine with me after you are successfully divorced,’ he says finally. He thinks he means it, but he doesn’t know what he will do if Nora Barlow appears on his doorstep one morning announcing to be divorced, ready to hold him to his words.

As it turns out, he will never know.

‘Maybe I don’t have time,’ she huffs with an annoyed and disappointed look in her eyes. ‘Or maybe my life is complicated enough not to waste it on narrow-minded, bigoted men with baffling moustaches.’

_Oi! That was uncalled for._ Volger vaguely feels that he hurt the woman, but he still doesn’t know what she expected him to do. Or what he wants to do, as a matter of fact. Maybe he should figure that out first.

‘I can’t grasp what is your problem with my moustache.’

‘It belongs to you!’

For a minute Dr Barlow seems to be ready to snap off Volger’s head, but then she shrugs, nods and walks out of the garden into her house with her British elegance.

Volger feels like they forgot to discuss something very important, but he has had a lot of feelings this evening, most of them odd and fathomless, irking his mind in a wrong way, and in his confusion over Nora Barlow he shouldn’t forget about his guests. He must make some friends for Alek’s sake, and he should be a bit more successful in his attempts then he was with his dinner invitations. A fifteen-year-old son is a responsibility great enough.


	2. Schooltime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by flannelgiraffe - thank you!

Volger stops the car in the school’s parking lot, then turns to Alek.

‘First day of school,’ Volger says, keeping his voice neutral. ‘I know this isn’t easy for you, but I don’t think you will have any problem with fitting in.’

‘Apart from being a foreigner with a funny accent _and_ a newcomer at school, in the town, in the whole country?’ Alek smiles. ‘Yeah, everything will go smoothly.’

Volger frowns. ‘You don’t have a funny accent. Nor do I.’

‘No, really, I think everything will go smoothly. Deryn promised to help me not to get lost in the jungle of Red Land High School. Or was that a threat? Anyway, she has my back, and Dr Barlow has yours.’

Volger’s frown deepens. He wanted to comfort Alek before the boy enters the school building, and now it is backfiring on him in every way. Also, his whole morning is slowly sliding into confusion.

Alek frowns back. ‘You know that Doctor Barlow is a teacher at Red Land, don’t you?’

‘Now I do,’ Volger sighs. His life is turning into a comedy. Or a tragedy, it’s only a matter of perspective. ‘Well, anyhow…’

But Alek is not letting the matter go. ‘I thought you two were friends.’

‘Friends,’ Volger repeats the word, as if tasting it. ‘You see, young man, adults don’t make _friends_ the way teenagers do.’

‘This is either bullshit or the root of the whole problem with adults. You know, it would explain a lot.’

Volger sighs and makes a mental note to have a talk with Alek about manners later. ‘I am certain that one day you will grow up, but first we need to make sure that we are not late on our first day.’

They march into the school together: the new student and the new teacher. They bid each other goodbye in the great hall and Volger makes his way to the teacher’s room, where Mrs Rogers, the other History teacher finds him and feels obliged to introduce him to everyone.

‘Nora! Have you met Mr Volger?’ Mrs Rogers’s enthusiasm can’t quite rub off on them.

‘Yes, we happen to be neighbours.’ Dr Barlow’s cool British politeness never seems to desert her. ‘What are you teaching? German?’

‘History, actually.’

Mrs Rogers doesn’t seem to notice the unnatural tone of their conversation. ‘Oh, you must be good friends already,’ she flashes them a radiant smile and there is that word again: _friends_.

Ernst Volger doesn’t particularly want to be anyone’s friend. He feels he is too old to make new friends – actually, his recent talk in his garden with Dr Barlow makes him think he is too old for relationships. That thought is most distressing since he has a teenaged adopted son and they must form some links eventually. But he can’t imagine bonding with people at every corner… Even if he is just about to face dozens of students and new colleagues, all of them expecting him to form some kind of relationship with them. A formal one but still.

Ernst Volger sighs. He has got a lot of names and faces to memorize.

 

***

 

Both of Volger and Alek manages their first week of school quite well. Volger is not surprised about Alek (he’s always had a high opinion of the boy, and after all, Alek looked genuinely excited about joining a new community), but is most surprised at himself. His students slowly get accustomed to him, and he is able to make the obligate small talk with his colleagues during breaks.

Except Dr Nora Barlow. They have managed to avoid each other, which is an incredible achievement since they are colleagues and neighbours at the same time. Of course, sometimes they must greet each other in a civilised manner, but that’s all.

Sometimes he wonders if that’s all wrong.

One morning Volger is rushing into the teacher’s room (Alek couldn’t find his training socks or something like that… the point is that they are late for a very silly reason) and he almost runs into Dr Barlow. He tries to sidestep her, but she wants to do the same, so they collide. Again.

‘I am sorry, Doctor Barlow,’ he grunts. ‘Or Mrs Barlow or however I should call you.’

‘Doctor Barlow will do just fine, thank you. I have got a PhD in Biology, after all.’

‘Yes, and you are still a high school teacher.’

‘Well, you could have called me Nora, it was your choice, not mine.’

‘No, it was your game that I failed! And I still don’t understand what you expected me to do.’

‘I expected you to do what you wanted to do!’ Dr Barlow is almost shouting now, and they are definitely late from their first period.

‘I wanted to do what _you_ wanted me to do!’

Nora Barlow finally loses her temper. ‘You’re most illogical!’

‘No, _you_ are!’ In this moment the thought of moving away from the neighbourhood of the Barlows is very tempting for Ernst Volger.

‘Your moustache is nonsense!’ the infuriating woman answers triumphantly. ‘And now excuse me, I must rush to educate some young souls.’

‘Poor, unfortunate souls,’ Volger mumbles loud enough that she can still hear it but pretends not to.

He spends his whole morning thinking about Nora Barlow.

She is witty, that’s sure, she knows and uses sarcasm, she can be very patient, but when she finally loses her temper, well, to tell the truth, that is quite hot. An intelligent and sarcastic woman? That’s hotness walking on two legs. For Volger anyway.

Also, he can’t understand a single thing she does. Maybe because she is a woman and he is a man? More like they didn’t get to know each other. Uh-uh. That must be it.

Damn, he should have repeated his dinner invitation right after the highway incident. Ask for her number, call her, take her out to dine, chat, and get to know her slowly. Not to run into her husband and draw hasty conclusions. Back then there was still much to do, what with moving abroad, and then, he felt, he missed the ideal moment of action. He got a second chance – they became neighbours –, yet he missed his chance again. Now he is having his third chance (the two of them becoming colleagues), but his luck might be running short. He must act at once.

Volger approaches Dr Barlow in the fourth break on the corridor near the Chemistry labs. Not the most ideal place to have the talk he planned to have with her, but for the moment there are no students around, so it will do.

What he plans to do: ask her out for coffee, suggesting a _tabula rasa_.

What he actually does: he marches up to Dr Barlow, kisses her hard on the mouth and says, ‘This is what I wanted to do.’

Nora Barlow flashes her mischievous smile. ‘See? Coincidently, this is the exact same thing I expected you to do.’ Volger isn’t sure if a grown-up woman should have such twinkles in her eyes, but he can’t ponder over that that for too long, because she grabs his hand and, without lowering her voice, declares:  ‘Remember what I said about my life being complicated? I changed my mind: I don’t give a damn about complications. Let’s have sex.’

Volger finds that he embraces surprise as an old friend now. Under Nora Barlow’s expectant gaze he nods and the woman drags him around the corner and into the chemical storeroom.

‘Here. Mitchell has sneaked off for a one-hour long lunch break, so no one will disturb us in the next fourteen minutes,’ she explains. (Mitchell is the head Chemistry teacher and the grim ward of said storeroom.)

‘Fourteen minutes?’

‘Well, it’s a short break and when the bell rings I have to go and talk about the different forms of bacteria to bored teenagers.’

‘Bacteria? Sounds most exciting.’

‘Yes, it does. But right now you have an anatomy lesson, Mr Volger.’

As the door closes behind him Volger can’t decide if he finds her dirty talk exciting or terrifying.

When the bells rings, they are hastily trying to arrange their clothes.

‘Now I will have to teach for an hour with legs turned to jello,’ Dr Barlow chuckles.

‘Jello,’ Volger repeats the word, tasting it. ‘How American does that sound.’

‘Maybe the years spent here are finally rubbing off on me,’ she shrugs. ‘What is on your plate for the next hour? Industrial revolution? The Great Depression?’

‘Merely revising for my class after the next break.’

‘Lucky you.’ She lingers for a moment, before quickly kissing him on the cheek. ‘Catch you later.’

What Volger does is not preparation for his upcoming class. He sits down right there on the concrete floor of the storeroom, risking the questioning glances of Mitchell, and thinks.

 

Dr Barlow’s just snapped shut her briefcase (she carries her things around in a briefcase, and in Volger’s opinion that is very sexy thing) and is ready to go home, when Ernst Volger approaches her. Their encounters went like a rollercoaster today, so he tries to express himself very carefully.

‘I have come to catch you as you suggested earlier,’ he says, making her giggle a little. Maybe not that careful after all. ‘I have got a proposition: let’s start everything all over. I’d like you to have coffee with me. For a start. Then we could dine together. We could talk. Share some things about ourselves. Chat about simple things. We could get to know each other, slowly, becoming friends… Then some time later maybe I could realise that our friendship has turned into something more. That I have fallen in love with you.’ He pauses. Nora Barlow’s eyes are huge, full of surprise and appreciation. Maybe this time he managed to say the right things? ‘Of course, there is the possibility that we end up wanting to drown each other in the very first cup of coffee we have,’ he adds. He can’t resist a bit of sarcasm here and there. ‘Anyway, I am asking for some time. I am an old man, after all,’ he says in a tone that suggests _but-not-that-old_ , ‘I need to take things slowly.’

‘Yes, otherwise a heart-attack might take you,’ Nora Barlow replies wickedly. ‘You are an old romantic, that’s what you are. But of course you will get all the time you want. First: time for coffee. I happen to know a nice little café. It’s surprisingly cosy and they offer fresh newspapers along the coffee every morning.’

And Ernst Volger bows to her choice.


End file.
